This invention relates to the destructive distillation or pyrolysis of organic waste materials and the recovery of useful products from the residue and evolved gases.
Pyrolysis of organic materials is not a new art. The following United States patents disclose various destructive distillation, pyrolysis or cracking processes and apparatus: U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,777,449; 1,898,326; 2,025,384; 2,160,341; 2,238,367; 2,757,129; 2,897,146; 3,110,663; 3,186,923; 3,207,675; 3,362,887; 3,617,469; 3,639,111; 3,702,039 and 3,761,568. Other materials disclosing pyrolysis systems are the Bureau of Mines Report of Investigations 7428 entitled "Conversion of Municipal and Industrial Refuse into Useful Materials by Pyrolysis," published by the United States Department of the Interior, August 1970.
None of the systems or processes disclosed in the prior art is in commercial use today because of their inefficiency. All of the disclosed systems are "batch" systems, where a "batch" or load of organic material is pyrolyzed and its gases and residue recovered. Then the residue must be removed and a new "batch" or load of material is then loaded and pyrolyzed. Such batch systems are inherently inefficient since a constant heat cannot be maintained and a constant supply of material cannot be utilized. Further, the prior art systems and processes either require pyrolysis at extremely high temperatures or high pressures or both to operate.
Accordingly, one primary feature of the present invention is to provide a continuous feed distillator for continuously pyrolyzing large volumes of organic materials.
Another feature of the present invention is to provide means to continuously feed organic material into and discharge residue from a sealed distillator for accomplishing the destructive distillation process.
Yet another feature of the present invention is to provide for continuous movement of the material within the distillator under heat sufficient to accomplish pyrolysis of the materials.
Still another feature of the present invention is to provide means for controlling the thickness of the material moving in the sealed distillator in order to maximize heat transfer from the heated distillator to the organic material.
Another feature of the present invention is the classifying and separating apparatus provided for handling and recovering usable products therefrom.
Yet another feature of the present invention is the recovery of crude oil products and natural gas from the gases evolved during pyrolysis.